Jonathan Simmons

Life on a little boat

I saw her and knew she was the one. I loved being with her, loved the way she moved, loved her graceful curves – but when I moved in five hours after we met, friends and family thought I was crazy.

“She’s not right for you,” they said. “Isn’t it a bit early to make this kind of commitment?”

It was, but I didn’t care: I’d just bought my first boat.

Nightingale is a 1984 Catalina 22 sailboat. She’s also my home.

I bought her a few months ago in St. Augustine for $2,300, and announced my grand plan to friends and family: I would motor the boat 300 miles down the Intracoastal to Miami, where I study journalism at Florida International University, and live on her out in Biscayne Bay.

It would be great, I told my friends.

I’d have an awesome view. My daily commute to school would involve a canoe or a dinghy. And I’d have no rent, no loud neighbors, no landlord, no bugs and no city traffic noise.

They pointed out some problems: on Nightingale, I’d also have no running water, no air conditioning, no oven, no refrigerator, no closet, no shower, no toilet (more on that later) and, since the cabin’s just over 4 feet tall, no headroom.

And, they added, though Nightingale is about 22 feet long, the interior living space, not counting the raised sleeping platform under the boat’s bow, is much smaller – 7 feet across by 6 long. Not much room for storage.

No problem, I said. I was an avid camper. I’d spent weeks alone in the Everglades living out of a backpack, or, if I wanted true luxury, a canoe.

A 22-foot boat was the Hilton.

As for headroom, I’m short, and here was a place where being vertically challenged was finally an advantage.

Even with all of the hatches closed, I wouldn’t have to totally stoop over inside Nightingale, I’d just have to hang my head a bit.

But there were other concerns less easily answered.

I’d have to make the trip alone, and had never handled a boat that size on my own before.

The fall term had already started, I was a full-time student, and 300 miles is a long trip in a vehicle that averages 4 mph.

And I didn’t have a place in Miami to dock her.

But I couldn’t leave Nightingale in St. Augustine, so I loaded her with canned food, bottled water, and extra gas, took her out on afternoon practice runs, and, one morning, climbed aboard, started the motor, and pointed her bow south toward Miami.

I motored through state parks where the water was fringed with open marsh and cities where I floated behind condos and cafes and homes where children fished and waved at me from backyard docks.

A pod of dolphins followed me partway down the Indian River on the Treasure Coast.

I ran aground on hidden sandbars. Twice.

I passed through 42 drawbridges.

And I cheered when I crossed into the pale green waters of Biscayne Bay.

If living on a boat is a form of insanity, it’s a popular one.

There’s even a name for it – it’s called being a “liveaboard,” a term I learned when I was researching dock space and kept reading ads that said “no liveaboards.”

Some liveaboards are wealthy retirees cruising megayachts between marinas with ballrooms and restaurants and private spas.

Others are a step above homeless, living on a boat out at anchor because somehow they acquired one and it became their sole source of shelter.

By the time I decided to become a liveaboard, I’d been in Miami for about a year and a half.

I’d bounced between small apartments with bugs, leaky ceilings, bugs, loud neighbors, difficult landlords and bugs, paying $500-$650 a month for the privilege, and I wanted out.

A friend and one-time liveaboard suggested I get a boat and move onto it.

For the cost of half a year’s rent, he said, I could buy a small sailboat, live on it, and when I didn’t need it anymore, sell it.

And, he said, it’d be an adventure. How many college kids get one of those during the school year?

I found a place to keep Nightingale the week before I motored her into Miami.

For $150 a month, I keep her tied up to a mooring ball – a plastic float like a buoy, attached to a heavy anchor – in a mooring field run by the county-owned Pelican Harbor Marina, where I can use a shower, bathroom, laundry room and the marina parking lot.

So I moved aboard and started learning how to live in a space the size of a small walk-in closet, with no running water, air conditioning, oven or refrigerator.

I found low-tech substitutes for most of those things.

I keep fresh water in plastic jugs. I open the boat’s hatches to keep the cabin cool. I heat food on a one-burner camp stove and keep it cold in an ice chest.

A small portable boat toilet fits under the v-berth.

I power my computer and cell phone with a solar panel.

I developed simple routines.

Every morning I get up before dawn, dress, roll up my sleeping bag, and brew coffee on the camp stove.

I drink it out on the deck, even when it’s cold out – fish feed at the surface in early morning, and there’s always something hunting them: dolphin from below or gulls and brown pelican from above.

To go to school, I load my school supplies into dry bags and paddle a canoe to the marina where I keep my car, passing mangrove-fringed Pelican Island and a breakwater topped by gaggle of sea birds, and dragging out the trip.

I was well-warned before I bought Nightingale.

Over and over again, friends, family and other sensible people repeated the old adage.

“The two happiest days of a man’s life,” they said, “are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it.”

The happiness I felt when I bought Nightingale was happiness of an odd sort.

I’d had a similar feeling once before, when I was 6 or 7 and had just stepped off a high diving board about 20 feet above the pool at a family friend’s pool party. 

“Cool!” I’d thought. “Will this feel good or hurt like hell?” I belly-flopped at the pool. It stung. It hurt like hell.

I’m not sure about the boat yet. I’m still landing.

But so far it hasn’t stung.